---
Miz was napping peacefully in Mabel's lap. The teenager pet her gently even as Bill laid curled up nearby -- not fully asleep, but relaxed. Mabel liked the demons like this, quiet and calm. They seemed almost harmless this way… almost. She wasn't ever going to forget how dangerous they actually were, no matter how cute they appeared right now. (And that was really, really cute!) Mabel wasn't sure why Miz had suddenly wanted to be a cat (or why Bill had gone along with being one himself if he wasn't going to let anybody pet him as a cat like Lazy-Eye Susan did while he was being human"-ish"), but she liked how kittyMiz was… easier to distract with simple things like this, like feathers and string, sticks and thrown balls and petting. It made Mabel wonder if maybe whatever body Miz was in affected how she behaved? Because if it did…
...well, Bill probably wasn't the same way. Mabel was pretty sure she knew why Bill wasn't letting anybody get near him right now. When he'd been a huge triangle-pyramid-demon-thing during Weirdmageddon, they'd had trouble fighting him, even with the Shack, hitting him with anything in anything other than the eye. But in a human"-ish" body, Bill had ended up really beat-up-able these days, and he'd yelled at most of them not to touch him, up until he'd gotten that suit-thing he was wearing. And then he'd basically been untouchable and unbeatable again, at least physically. But Mabel was pretty sure he wasn't wearing any kind of suit as a cat right now though, which meant he was probably 'physically vulnerable' all over again and stuff… and wouldn't want any of them touching him again, because he'd think that they were going to grab him and hurt him. Bill might have laughed off Grunkle Ford beating him up like that out on the porch before when her grunkle hadn't been sleeping really well, but if he'd actually not cared about getting hurt, he wouldn't have started wearing that suit, so...
...anyway, Miz didn't seem worried about any of this stuff at all, and that wasn't super-surprising to Mabel -- the two of them really did seem to be different on a lot of different stuff. And maybe this was one of those things? Because sure, Miz had been pouncing around a lot indoors that one time after all sorts of stuff, and she'd liked Susan petting her on the head too, but… Miz had definitely acted differently as a dragon in that other dimension than as a cat now or as a human. Which meant that she did act differently sometimes. And with her headband blocking a bunch of stuff that Miz felt was natural, too… it made Mabel wonder what Miz was like in her triangle form, too. Because that was a form that Miz hadn't shown to any of them so far (at least, not that Mabel knew of).
And she should have one, right? Because Miz had said that she was a Bill Cipher. Just… a different one? From a different dimension, with a different background… and Mabel knew what alternate selves were like; she'd met the other Mabels that one time in that MAB-3L dimension. Most of them had been nice, kind of like her in some way, but Anti-Mabel had been pure evil and her opposite in practically every single way. --She'd even hated cats!! And with what those Anti-Ford and Anti-Stan and Anti-Mason had all been like in that Anti-Mabel's other dimension… Mabel couldn't help but wonder just how similar or different the other Bills were, too. (Especially Miz and Bill compared to each other, when they were both being their worst and most horrible(?!) selves.) Mabel had only met Miz so far for comparison to Bill, so she didn't really have a good idea of how different Bill Ciphers usually were from each other.
...well, okay, maybe there was that Anti-Bill, too. But Bill insisted that that all-floaty purplish kind of square wasn't a 'him-who-was-also-him AT ALL', (...and Anti-Bill wasn't just creepy, he'd treated her even worse than Bill did...) so Mabel really wasn't all that sure if Anti-Bill counted as an alternate Bill Cipher, too.
...Oh, hey wait -- there was also that Seb guy too, right? That super-silly guy that Miz had been with the last time Miz had been here before and made that big beautiful bouncy castle just for her? ...Was Seb another Bill? Mabel honestly couldn't remember. If somebody had asked her cold, 'Is this Bill?' she would have to say no, but… if she had to compare Seb to Bill and Miz? They'd all kinda acted sort of similar to each other, three of a type. And so Mabel frowned a little as she kept petting Miz as she thought -- had Miz mentioned that before, that Seb was another Bill, too? Had Bill said it instead? -- but she couldn't remember if she really had or hadn't heard that or not. Even if they all did sort of act crazy-ish in the same way...
Meanwhile, KittyMiz stirred a little, beginning to wake up from her cute little impromptu nap, rolling over and stretching as she readjusted her position. Mabel (even though she was trying to keep herself from being deterred or distracted by this oh so very cat-like display, still) 'awww'ed at how cute it was, at how KittyMiz was being.
And after awhile of general stretching (and getting gently scritched behind the ears a bit as she did so), KittenMiz twitched and cracked open her eyes. "Uuuuh?" Mabel winced. "Sorry. Didn't mean to wake you." She really had been trying to not wake her up, even as she'd kept on petting Miz in her lap in her sleep.
"-ss' fine…" KittenMiz yawned. "You're comfortable," she told Mabel.
The teenager giggled. "It's probably my sweater. It's soft," she told Kitty!Miz as Miz purred, nuzzling her face up against said sweater.
"It iiiiiisssss~" Miz said, before she relaxed up against Mabel's side. "I like you. You're nice." Miz murmured sleepily. "Screw what the unicorns say… they're nothing like the ones in Those Little Ponies anyway…."
Mabel took the unicorn comment in stride -- she didn't care what they thought of her anymore -- but at that last part she blinked. "You watch Those Little Ponies?" She hadn't expected that. She'd thought Miz only watched anime cartoons?
Miz rolled over again, and began kneading at Mabel's sweater. "Yeah~ though it had a different name back in my original dimension. It was called My Little Ponys. But the show's pretty much the same in terms of atmosphere… all the characters are different though… still cute ponies…" (The equivalent show in this dimension was far more diverse, with more boy ponies right from the start. It was nice -- it didn't take away from the female characters either; they shared equal amounts of screen time and had their own separate adventures too. The show still out-and-out shattered the Bechdel test, and then some.)
"That sounds nice." Mabel was relieved to hear that Miz liked cute and happy shows like that, too. She'd been a little worried over Miz's taste in movies and TV. Fruits Basket was cute… but some of it was really, really, super sad and kind of dark. (...which Miz had claimed was the point. That they were sad, and then they got better.)
"--though I liked the fanmade Friendship is Witchcraft spinoff a lot too," Miz purred. "I relate so hard to those characters."
"Which ones?" Mabel asked, curious despite herself, hoping that a sweet cartoon show about ponies would be a safe topic to talk about with her. (Most things weren't safe to talk about with either Bill, she'd been finding.)
"Pinkie mostly. She just wants her family back." Miz settled down, partially dozing off again. Mabel stiffened a little at the mention of demonic family (because there was that brother that Miz had said that Bill didn't want to talk about, and Bill was sitting right there; Mabel was pretty sure he was awake)...
...But Miz didn't say anything else (and neither did Bill), and that was good, so Mabel slowly went back to petting Miz again as she talked. "...well, my favorite character is MoonShimmer. She's really pretty," was Mabel's input. Miz giggled, then said:
"MoonShimmer's a giraffe."
"--I know, that's what makes her cool!" Mabel told her, grinning, and the two girls began discussing the show. (And while Mabel was doing it, she was glad that Miz was sticking to only talking about stuff from the cute pony show and completely staying away from any and all other, darker topics.)
"I think I'm further along than you, so I should probably avoid telling you spoilers," Miz told her. It left Mabel startled, then pouting.
...and she tried using the big-eyes look on Miz as she said: "Just one spoiler would be fine, right?"
Miz looked up at the other little 'queen of the household' and… in the end, she just couldn't help it.
Miz hummed, as she seriously considered it. "Well~" She grinned up at Mabel. "If you're suuuuure~?" and Mabel could have backed down, but she didn't. "Yup!"
"--MiracleNote gets married!" Miz wiggled as she told gave her just the one spoiler, looking so very smug as she did it.
Mabel's jaw dropped. "Really? Who does he marry?" Her shipping chart depended on the answer. But at this, Miz continued to look smug.
"Not telling~ you'll just have to wait and find out~"
"TinselTop? ScarletJewel?! Munchy?!" Mabel guessed in rapid succession, her eyes getting progressively wider and wider.
But to this, Miz covered her mouth with both of her little front paws. "Nnnnnnope!" she purred out. "I'm practicing not telling people stuff!"
"But that's just for other stuff!" Mabel whined out at her. It wasn't fair; that was maybe only half a real spoiler! "Tell meeeee~" But all Miz continued to do was proceed to giggle through her paws. Mabel pouted. "Why'd you tell me if you weren't actually going to tell me?!" she complained. PetalKick? It'd better not be PetalKick! They'd had a whole arc about how she and MiracleNote wouldn't be a 'thing' because they were childhood friends and he thought of her as a sister--
To this, KittenMiz huffed out a breath and told her, "The fact that you want to know is what makes it practice for me to keep mum about it." Miz curled up in place in her lap. "And something like this is a harmless topic to practice on."
Mabel groaned before letting her head drop back, before letting her arms and back follow suit, splaying herself across the flat (dirty) boards of the porch. "Why'd you have to pick this? I'm going to be thinking about it all daaaaaay!"
"That's the point!" Miz insisted. Mabel groaned again. "I did ask if you were sure you wanted to hear it." Miz pouted, hoping Mabel wasn't going to blame her for this. After all, she'd brought it on herself! Miz had even warned her all about it!
Mabel kept guessing names for who MiracleNote would have married. "...Am I at least close?" she complained a little bit, hoping for at least a little more of something to go with it. (But Miz's only response to her was, "I won't say anything one way or another.") Mabel sighed. --This wasn't really fun at all anymore; it was practically torture, now, not knowing. And how long was she going to she have to keep on distracting the demons for, anyway? When were Dipper and Melody going to be back?
"Don't worry so much," Miz assured her. "This will be a pleasant surprise for you to look forward to! Not all surprises are going to be this innocent."
Mabel frowned a little, not missing Miz's last mutter, and made a mental note to tell that one to Dipper, and her Grunkle Stan. But she didn't ask to understand more; she knew better than to ask them herself by this point. And--
--then Mabel glanced over as she levered herself up on her elbows a bit and saw what Bill looked like, compared to Miz. ...And Mabel decided to stop asking Miz about anything at all for a while; Bill was looking kinda tense for some reason, and not in a good way. She wasn't sure how long he'd been eyeing them both like that, but...
Bill was (still) watching Miz from where he was lying, watching her and Shooting Star out of the corners of his eyes. But when Miz stayed quiet for several long moments, saying nothing more than what she already had there, and with Shooting Star not pressing his sister any further, he flicked his eyes away from them both and relaxed back down again, lowering his head and closing his eyes.
His sister really DID need to practice holding back information, and Shooting Star needed to learn patience and when a time was a bad time to ask certain types of things. This was good practice, for the both of them. And they were both doing well. WELL… much better than they had been before.
---
Dipper and Melody eventually came home from their shopping trip and, once they were back, Mabel had high-tailed (HAH!) it outta there, post-haste. With her favorite head-scratcher gone, Miz had made her way back upstairs with her brother to hang out up in the attic until dinner time, whereupon she and Bill went downstairs, she ate some fish (while Bill ate a mix of carrots, peas, and green beans) off of some plates on the countertops that Melody had prepared for them, and then they both went back up to the attic again to sleep. Miz took a bit of that time before bed to review what she'd learned from Dipper and Pacifica's conversation out at the market (because she'd wanted to know, and pulling up information was EASY once she'd gotten used to how it worked here) before her curiosity was settled and she could sleep easy.
By the time the next morning rolled around though, and another cat-friendly (thus very small portioned and bland-tasting) breakfast, Miz was already bored of being a cat; so she shifted both her form and sex into Jan. Then he stretched and sighed in relief. "Ah~bipedal-ness how I've missed you~" Jan purred as he slumped back over the pillow he'd spent most of his time lounging on as a cat up in Bill's room.
Bill looked up from where he was lying down, lounging across his own pillow, having woken up a while ago from yet another nap after breakfast, but had been content to just lie there thinking with his eyes closed. "...You're bored of being a cat?" he asked her, blinking open his eyes to look over at Jan. That had seemed rather quick to him. ...Then again, his little sister did seem to enjoy shifting between and trying out different forms a lot.
Jan nodded, spreading his four arms out around him as he leaned back and got more comfortable on the pillow. "I missed having fingers," he pouted. "Can't cook without 'em." And as much as he liked the fact that Bill could eat while inside one of the vessels he made, it wasn't quite the same as cooking food just for his brother. Jan looked over at Bill, fully relaxed as he continued on sunbathing in the light coming in through the attic window. Briefly, Jan wondered how long he was allowed to stay here. The GlitchBill was gone. There was nothing keeping him here except his own desire to stay with his big brother.
And no matter what Stan said about how he was welcome to stay since he was Bill's family, Jan was pretty sure that none of the humans actually wanted him here. Mabel was perfectly nice to hang out with, but she didn't like Miz as a friend. And while Jan thought Soos might like him well enough, that was about the extent of it; he was pretty sure that most of the others just tolerated him, at best. Jan wouldn't deny that part of him (most of him actually) was quite annoyed at this, because he'd been trying hard to be on good behavior. No rampaging, or forcibly shapeshifting anyone because he was bored and needed some way to let loose his powers! Did they not realize how much self-restraint that took? (But that wasn't the issue here. People didn't like him because he kept talking. Never shutting up.)
(And if Jan had complained to any of the Pines about the 'self-restraint' it took within earshot of Ford, he would have immediately pointed to that as the entire reason why no-one should trust him. That it was all just a front. Proof of what he'd been saying all along. That what the man-eater really wanted to do to them all, and the town around them, was to--)
Jan pouted, feeling frustrated. Why, he'd even been trying to stick to one form for the majority of his stay, even when it made him feel stifled and constrained, more so than the headband and the bracers. Being forced to be 'female' for so long was just…!
But then Jan stopped for a moment and frowned to himself in thought. He... hadn't realized how uncomfortable it would feel to have to be one sex/gender for so long. He was used to just switching whenever he felt like it. And whenever he switched genders as a triangle, it wasn't like anyone noticed.
Jan had stayed as 'Miz' when around all the people here for their own sake of mind, though, just trying to be good for his own brother's sake, to get along when he was clearly trying to do the same. ...And he'd also stuck to being and remaining as 'Miz' for so long because he hadn't wanted to switch it out on the kids too much, just in case it got too weird for them. Plus, since Miz 'looked' like she was around their age, he'd thought it would make them more comfortable around him.
All his human-ish forms were 'technically' supposed to be 27, technically. (Though, Jan wasn't all that good at telling apart age anymore.) Frankly, Jan, Xin and Yun looked like young adults though, somewhere between their late-teens and mid to late twenties, depending on posture and clothing. But Miz looked… like a kid. And that should have helped them all to like him! Miz was cute! Cuddly! Nice! --It had worked for him back home just fine! WHy wasn't it working for him here?!
It wasn't his fault that they all didn't like him -- he'd tried just about everything that he could to get them to like him better! He'd even tried being a cute and cuddly small cat -- the kitten thing wasn't just a whim after all! Everyone loved kittens, who would ever be able to hate him when he was so small and cute? Mabel loved cats! It should have helped to get the humans to relax around him! But it didn't work; NOTHING had worked!! It was so ANNOYING! Why should he even try if--!!
Fine! Whatever! If people were going to be wary and suspicious no matter how small and vulnerable he made his form, then he wasn't going to bother. If it didn't matter what he looked like for how they treated him, then he should just do what he wanted! Hence, he was now in his Jan form, four-armed and all!
Hm… would it be too obvious to just walk around in a clearly alien form, though? He didn't want the government getting called on him. ...Eh, he looked nothing like a triangle though, it shouldn't be a problem. Besides, this was Gravity Falls, they should just Nevermind All That. And as for the tourists? Well, Perception Filters were a thing. Jan didn't like hiding his body though. Miz might be self-conscious about some things, but Jan was created specifically to be 'attractive' (at least according to his own tastes in Bishounen) and he had no problem with showing off in front of others. So things like hiding his body just felt annoying to him. He was beautiful, he was created to BE beautiful! And he didn't feel right with the idea of having to hide himself from people. Jan shook his head. His form was literally a work of art that he had crafted, and he loved showing off his art to other people. It was a strange way to feel about what was essentially a body he was wearing -- which, to him, was just a vessel, essentially a physical form he wore (like clothing but not) so that people could see and interact with him. But to people like humans, who cared a lot about who they were as a person, and tied that identity in with their name and their appearance... someone like him who would simply swap out whenever he felt like it, changing not just physical forms but name, gender identity and persona...? Well, it would probably make people feel uncomfortable.
But Jan was already used to putting on a different persona with different people and in different situations, back from when he'd been human. He… she'd done it all her life. After all, she'd been Zyun-Jan to her family and V҉͎҉̷҉͎҉҉҉͎҉̷҉͎҉i҉͎҉̷҉͎҉҉҉͎҉̷҉͎҉c҉͎҉̷҉͎҉҉҉͎҉̷҉͎҉t҉͎҉̷҉͎҉҉҉͎҉̷҉͎҉o҉͎҉̷҉͎҉҉҉͎҉̷҉͎҉r҉͎҉̷҉͎҉҉҉͎҉̷҉͎҉i҉͎҉̷҉͎҉҉҉͎҉̷҉͎҉a҉͎҉̷҉͎҉҉҉͎҉̷҉͎҉ to everyone else. Swapping out names wasn't anything new for her. (And she hadn't even had a name as a triangle anyway, right?) And the person she'd been around her parents had been different from the person she'd been around her siblings or friends, or around teachers, classmates, customers, her coworkers… she'd still been the same person, but also different in terms of behavioral output. The adults around her had told her how she was supposed to be around them. Demure, obedient, quiet, a good girl who would stay out of the way and stop bothering the grown ups with silly stupid questions while they were busy. 'If you want to know something, go find out yourself instead of bothering us with your curiosity…'
So wasn't that normal, though? To put on a different persona with different people? So this thing that Jan did now, wasn't really all that different. Was it?
--Well it didn't matter, Jan was tired of being Miz, so he was going to be Jan for a bit! Who cared anymore anyway. --Not him!!
Jan sighed, leaning back on the pillow with one hand draped over his face. "...I wanna have a concert." He wanted to sing and dance his frustration away.
...And Bill got a slow cheshire-cat GRIN where he sat.
He stood up on his pillow, stretched a bit in place, then ADJUSTED himself, and--
--slipped his Self right out of that 'cat' vessel and back into his stupid human-ish body -- and then stretched inside that again afterwards, to help dispel the 'rubberband' feeling a bit.
"WELL," Bill told him, letting go of his stretch to relax again, before slowly sitting his no-longer-vacant body up again into a more straight-up sort of posture. "I did mean to do this at some point, ONE time or another. --I didn't get it done before I lost signal again," he told Jan rather cryptically, with an odd sort of sigh, "But..." Bill's eyes lightened up a bit brightly. "It SHOULD all be ready by now..."
Jan blinked and looked over at him.
"What's ready?" Jan asked her brother.
And Bill's grin grew even wider.
---
Jan went downstairs with Bill, feeling a little apprehensive about how the humans might react to his other form. But aside from Dipper being confused about who he was for a bit, and Mabel's slack-jawed and blushing face, the kids seemed to accept it without much trouble at all. Dipper even wanted to inspect the shifting patterns of melanin along Jan's skin. ("How are you doing that? You're inside the barrier, so it's not magic," Dipper noted with a thinking frown.)
Stan had simply told the twins that, yeah, sometimes Miz wanted to be a boy, that he'd done this before in the week in the other dimension that they hadn't seen, and that this particular form was called Jan. Bill, himself, had blinked in surprise when he'd learned that she'd thought switching forms might be a problem. (It wasn't as though she hadn't done it before multiple times, to his Mind and way of thinking.)
Ford, on the other hand...
...well, he simply rose to his feet from his chair without saying anything, to turn away from Jan and walk straight out of the room…
...and there was a slam of a (presumably, bedroom) door shortly thereafter. Jan had twitched at that, but turned away with a soft huff as he folded his arms. Stan sighed and scratched his cheek.
"Yeah, don't mind him," Stan told Jan. "He's still not really all that happy about the kid bein' all female and stuff, and…" Stan shrugged. "Probably reminds him of…" But then Stan stopped and frowned. He'd been about to say that it was probably just some demon thing he didn't lik, or that maybe Ford thought he was getting 'teased' by Jan, since the kid had sort of mocked him to that effect about one of the supposedly possible effects of his 'going female human' before. But Ford hadn't said anything about what Jan-Miz had just done, or 'warned' the kids about something to do with it this time, and he hadn't really said anything about it much on the boat, either. "...Uh, gimmie a minute," Stan told him. "--Kid, babysitting duty, yeah?" Stan added next, gesturing to the older of the two demons as he got up himself, and walked off after his brother, to go off and talk to him.
"Mm," said the kid in acknowledgment, as he leaned up against the counter to put the kettle on for hot water for some tea.
---
"...Ford?" Stan called out as he knocked on his brother's door. He didn't hear much more than a grumble. "I'm comin' in," he said next, because Ford had said he could come in whenever, and he turned the doorknob and did just that.
Ford was lying on his bed, glasses off, with his other hand over his face.
"Ford…" Stan closed the door behind him, before walking over to sit down on the bed next to him. "You wanna tell me what's going on?" Stan asked him next.
"You are actively helping them both gain worshippers, and a stronger foothold in our own dimension as gods," Ford grated out angrily at him, but he also sounded a hell of a lot more tired than he should, too.
Stan blinked. "Huh?"
To this, Ford rolled over in bed and stared up at his brother in disbelief, after putting his glasses back on and realizing his brother wasn't joking -- he really was confused at -- "Stanley," Ford began, "You just saw what the man-eater looked like, walking into the other room." Zero comprehension from his brother. "You had those tourists worshipping them, just the other day. --You set that all up for the two of them!" Ford told him, as he struggled to lever himself up. (And perhaps this latest development was in some way his own fault, for not better explaining the dangers of such a thing at the time--)
Stan scratched his cheek. "They were just cats, Ford," he told his brother. "Folks like petting cats. --That ain't worship." Not really. Seriously, what the heck?
"Adoration is a type of worship, Stan," his brother told him next, like he thought he was just spouting off basic facts, and Stan frowned at him until he said, "The two things that give demons the most power are adoration, and fear."
"You mean respect and fear," Stan corrected him.
Ford, who was still smarting over the fact that his brother had actually had the audacity to suggest he sit in on and watch as Bill received untold amounts of downright worship from a bunch of random strangers, given his history with Bill--
"It's fear and respect, that the kid wants," Stan continued on, to Ford's horrified amazement. "Kid never talks about wanting adoration, or whatever."
And Ford stared up at his brother in pure disbelief.
"That's not--" Ford began, but he was quickly cut off by "--It's all the kid talks about, Ford," and it left Ford feeling stunned and concerned.
"That's not how--" it works for demons, Ford started to tell him but Bill wasn't quite a normal sort of Demon, now, was he? And--
But when Ford tried to protest again and began to stall out slightly at the uncertainty that began to engulf him, Stan told him, "Look, kid didn't actually let anyone pet him during that whole thing. You don't gotta worry about nothin'." (And Ford grimaced -- because, yes, he knew that, he'd been watching from the video feed and if he'd seen Bill do anything like that, he would have immediately intervened, Stan's own brand of 'oh, this will be good for them' reasoning be damned.) And now Stan was starting to think that maybe this was part of it, too -- that maybe the kid had also known what Ford's reaction was going to be about-- "He only--"
"--sat like some kind of ancient Egyptian idolic statue of some sort, garnering awe and fear, and refusing to let anyone get even close enough to touch him," Ford told him while feeling a great deal of disgust, much of which surely entered his tone as he explained it, "While receiving offerings in a bowl on an altar placed below him. Watching it all the whole time." It hadn't quite been enough to be considered out-and-out worship of Bill, but it had come disturbingly close. Far, far too close. (If Ford hadn't been more worried about the fallout from intervening right in the middle of the tour, with all those innocent people around…)
(And as for that that man-eating… whatever she was, that being had clearly been getting something out of it. --Yes, she hadn't been brainwashing them outright, leaving them in an almost drugged-out kind of stupor while out-and-out begging for more, but some of the absolute worst of the worst could be far far more subtle in their designs, and Bill… would not have put up with that. The triangle demon considered this dimension his, and Ford knew -- absolutely knew -- that Bill would not put up with that from anyone, "little sister" or no. ...It was the only reason he'd held himself back, and kept himself strictly to watching. Because Stan was fine, and Dipper and Mabel were fine, and Bill himself had only and merely, almost...)
(It still gave Ford a bad taste in his mouth. It had had him gripping his arms, sitting in that chair and watching tensely, while all the while wanting to just close his eyes and look away and not think about-- how he'd used to worship Bill himself--)
Stan paused. Well. Yeah. That had been kind of the point. But...
"...This is really a problem with demons and junk?" Stan asked Ford slowly.
"Yes!" Ford told him, with no small exasperation (while stifling a shudder).
Stan let out a breath. "Okay," he told his brother with a shrug, as he rubbed the back of his head. "Guess we won't be doin' that one anymore."
But before Ford could begin to feel any relief at his brother's easy pronouncement on that one at all, Stan added, "So what's the problem with what M-- Jan looks like, then?"
Ford twitched. It left him quite aghast; he wasn't sure he should even need to point this out, it was so obvious, but-- "That form was clearly made to engender worship in anyone looking at them, upon sight! Did you not see the way Mabel looked at the man-eater when they entered the room?! And Dipper, as well?!?" Dipper had resisted it somewhat, but it was clear to Ford that it had been difficult for him, and-- Ford had seen it all before. What the man-eater had done the day before hadn't quite worked on the niblings the way that she'd intended, so today she must've decided to try and-- and-- Did Bill truly not realize what she was trying to do? Because that was the only reason Ford could think of for the dream demon's utter lack of response to her doing that, and-- And yet Stan was looking at him like he didn't-- "I know what I'm talking about, Stan! I've seen it before!" Not that he wanted to talk about it, but with what was happening in the other part of the house, right now--
"So Jan's a little attractive, in a weird androgynous kinda way," Stan shrugged. "What does… how is that some kinda huge 'worshipping' problem? Mabel ain't worshipping him. She's like that with any cute guy she sees."
"Adoration is a form of power and worship for demons," Ford repeated, beginning to lose his patience, and then Stan said:
"Thought we were clear about these two not really bein' demon-demons, or whatever."
And Ford clenched his jaw at that. (That was something he still didn't want to think much about at all.) "My point still stands, even if they aren't… Outsiders... they're still a type of demon."
"And the kid thinks he gets what he wants outta respect and fear, not adoration," Stan said, like it was effectively closing the subject.
"--And the man-eater seems to eat up anything resembling adoration, while wanting a form of it that seems to edge into borderline-love," Ford pointed out, feeling quite sick as he did so. Because only the very worst demons worked on individuals, to slowly and painfully (or quickly and deliriously) send them into such a state -- for them, and them alone, solely -- and it was ugly, to see what became of those poor people then.
Stan straight up had to do a double take. "...Ford…" Stan said slowly, "Jan, Miz… I'm pretty sure that dragon lady wants to be loved because they're lonely. That's… a human thing, you know?" It made Stan feel weird and really off-balance, sayin' this sort of stuff out loud to his own brother. "Everyone wants to be loved. Right?"
But Ford looked away from him, uncomfortable, one hand grasping his other arm by the elbow, almost half-hugging himself.
"It's not love that any demon ever truly wants, Stan," Ford told him quietly. "I told you before, they just aren't capable of it."
"Well, the dragon-lady certainly seems to want it," Stan pointed out. "Pretty sure she ain't lying about that."
"And what the man-eater calls 'love', I have no doubt that we would call something else," Ford said moodily.
Stan let out a sigh. He wasn't gonna get through to his brother on this one today, was he. "Ford…" But he had to stop there. The dragon-lady was desperate for something, and it went well beyond 'love' -- that was true. Kid was desperate for something a little different, and the dragon-lady didn't fill up that hole for him; she was more of an… addition to it, off to the side almost, kinda. (And Stan could tell that the dragon-lady had noticed that too, at least a little bit. He was pretty sure that was why she sometimes went off taking on the 'older sister' role, instead of the 'younger sister' one sometimes, for him. She was trying harder to be a better kind of every kind of 'sister' to the kid to make up for it.) And if he tried to convince Ford of this one, right now...
...he didn't want the kid coming after him later, for telling stuff to Ford that his brother might end up trying to use against him, or Miz. Because right now, they were kind of a weak point for each other. Stan knew that; he'd been taking advantage of that, leveraging that a bit.
But Stan wasn't too sure what 'taking advantage of that' might look like for the demon-kid and the dragon-lady, if Ford was the one trying to do it.
So Stan kept his stupid mouth shut on that one, and decided to move on to talking with his brother about something else, instead.
---
Dipper frowned over at Bill, as Grunkle Stan walked off and left Bill to his tea making at the stove -- and him and his sister to the demon's "care" while he did it -- but Dipper didn't bother objecting to getting 'babysat' by the crazy demon this time. It had kind of looked like Great-Uncle Ford might've really needed Grunkle Stan to go after him, and Dipper hadn't been about to stop that. Besides, they were all still in the Shack, and within yelling distance. The demons couldn't do anything to either of them without getting in trouble almost immediately, so they wouldn't even try to do it this time, right?
Mabel, meanwhile, went up to Jan and asked, "So, you're a boy now? Or are you still a girl? Are you not female but you're still a girl, like how Bill is female but still a boy, now?" She was kind of almost hoping Jan might still be a girl, even though Jan kind of seemed a little more like a boy now to her, because it had been kind of nice having more girls around the Shack? But if Jan was a boy now, then that was fine, too! She just wanted to know, so she wouldn't get it wrong!
"I'm a 'he' right now," Jan said as he smiled down at Mabel. "I was a female girl as a human, but even then, I wasn't really all that attached to being a 'girl' or being 'female'. So now that I can shapeshift, I can just switch whenever I want. I… actually tried to stay more or less the same while here, since from what I remember as a human, they tend to get… uncomfortable when someone just switches around."
Mabel gasped, slapping her hands to her own cheeks. "But… what other people think doesn't matter! You should be what you want to be, whenever you feel like it!" She thought it was cool that Mi-- um, Jan! -- could turn into cats or cute boys or whatever she/he wanted whenever she/he wanted to!
At this, Dipper tensed, because… well, he saw how Bill's shoulders kind of did a small thing right there when Mabel had said that, and he was pretty sure that if Bill was still looking like a cat right now, his ears would've just perked up like--
("That's not an 'okay' to stick any of us in another body, Bill," Dipper muttered out at him, hoping as he said it that Jan -- who seemed to have way less control than even the dream demon -- didn't hear, because... "Grunkle Stan said you've got to talk to him first before anybody even thinks about doing anything like that anyway, remember," Dipper reminded him firmly, to which Bill just rolled his eyes kind of sarcastically and stopped doing the shoulder-thing, pretty quickly.)
"Back when I was human, people got attacked or hurt for switching." Jan grimaced. "It was awful and unfair."
Dipper winced at Jan's words and looked away, shuffling his feet a bit. He knew what the 'dragon-lady' was talking about, there, and... "That… happens here too, sometimes…"
"Ugh, really? Still?! What the heck is wrong with people?" Jan scowled as he ran a hand through his hair. "Like, sure it's an issue with some aliens, but most of the multiverse is pretty open to the idea, probably because of all the shapeshifting species there are…" of which he kinda, sorta, had had a hand in… just some small genetic tweaks here and there, some ambient Weirdness leaking out into the world around him, changing and inducing mutations that fell in line with things he enjoyed… Well, it hadn't hurt anyone, and a universe that was more open and accepting of people being 'different' could only be a good thing, right?
Jan was sick of all the blood wars he'd Seen (and been forced to take part in). It was all so stupid. ...Well, he wasn't being fair, there were many factors that went into why wars happened. But it often boiled down to one group just not liking the other group or wanting something from them and not wanting to ask nicely. Well, he'd stopped bothering to try and stop the wars anymore, it was an exercise in futility. People just ended up hating him instead -- which he hadn't actually minded too much, since at least it had meant that they would stop fighting each other anymore... to focus on fighting him instead. But it was stressful and he'd just… stopped doing that, for his own sake of mind.
Jan shook himself out of his darkening thoughts, as Bill finished setting up a teatray for himself and began shooing the two younger twins out the backdoor of the Shack. "So, what's this mysterious 'ready' surprise thing?" he asked as he followed Bill out and onto the porch. (The twins came to a stop next to them: Dipper frowning, and Mabel curious, as usual.)
Bill made a chittering sound in something like delight. "WELL!" He kicked the cooler out from under the couch, and set the teatray down neatly on top of it, before waving a hand out at the yard broadly. "It's not quite finished yet. I need to get a few things from Stitched Heart first, buuuuuuut…" He paused for effect.
Jan thought for a bit before the lightbulb moment hit. "Oh~ does this have to do with that really cool stage that you liked?" His eyes sparkled.
Bill let out a "Hah!" before filling and picking up a teacup and striding down off of the porch and into the yard, the twins (and Jan) following behind him. (Curiously: Mabel. Suspiciously: Dipper.)
"Something like that, but I've been working on this with Shooting Star. We made an EVEN BETTER stage!" Bill flung his arms out with a very wide grin (yet not spilling a drop from his teacup as he did so), and--
--a rather large number of security drones from the spaceship suddenly materialized right in front of them in the middle of the yard, as Bill's 'cancellation' command to the drones had the 'invisibility' hologram those drones had been projecting (to mask their presence) suddenly waver, and then abruptly come crashing down.
Dipper jumped back in alarm at the sudden appearance of the droids -- which he freaking recognized from the alien spaceship as super-dangerous, thanks! -- and then yelped slightly as a GIGANTIC slab of metal slammed down into the grass-and-dirt yard in front of them edge-first, right away next. ...It was quickly set upon by the drones, several telescoping arms from several interweaving their ways around and along the edges of the huge metal slab, at a slew of odd bars and long indentations that seemed embedded in the side of the thing. Dipper could only look on and stare as the droids worked in an odd sort of unsynchronized synchronization, grabbing onto the slab firmly and then slowly seeming to lock themselves in place against the underside of the sideways-listing slab, before slowly working together to raise and rotate it up and over. They pulled it up off and out of the indentation it had made in the ground where it had hit, to tilt and tilt until it was almost level -- and then perfectly level -- with the plane of the ground below it, as several more droids still continued to circle around, doing somethings above...
Dipper stared open-mouthed at this display, as he finally realized exactly what it was he was looking at, and Mabel (who had already known all about this) made a squealing sound of absolute glee. "It's ready? --IT'S READY!!" Mabel yelled out happily, grinning as she ran forward and immediately started clambering her way up the side of one of the droids, then the locked-in-place arm-tentacles, to climb her way up onto the top of the metal-floored stage, wanting to take a good look around at the whole thing...
"Mabel!! --Wait!" Dipper called out frantically, as he scrambled right up after her, worried (largely because he knew exactly what those droids could do--).
"Yes," Bill called out simply, answering Shooting Star's question, even as she vanished up and out of his direct line-of-sight (though not the 'sight' that his suit's readouts were giving him, combined with all the output he was getting from his drones as they continued to put the final touches on everything as they worked according to HIS laws, carrying out HIS instructions to meet HIS sets of specifications). "All the production and programming is done, now. I just need the speaker system and the mics from Stitched Heart," Bill said (more to his sister, now), as if this was an everyday common occurrence. And then, and only then, he finally took a sip of tea from his cup, feeling rather pleased about the whole thing. (Of course the tea was for a celebration. It had taken his a while to figure all of this out. The materials alone had been--)
"A proper stage!" Jan enthused, clasping his hands in front of his chest with a faraway look. "I haven't had a real concert in a while…" Then he pouted. "Would I be allowed to have a concert?"
"I don't see why not." Bill shrugged. That was what a stage was for, after all. And it did need some breaking in to become one.
Jan frowned in thought. "I suppose, if I replace my fireworks with illusions so there's no fear of anyone being injured…" He nodded to himself. Then his head came up further. "Oh right, isn't that Woodstick festival thing coming up? Do you think I could perform?"
Bill turned and blinked at his sister. "...It is," he said slowly, but that was several weeks away. "You don't want to use my stage now?" he asked. Certainly, it wasn't really a proper stage yet until someone actually played something on it, and he hadn't exactly made it in the first place with his sister specifically in mind, but… it had been her post that had prompted his initial stage-building challenge to those three idiots in that other dimension in the first place, and… well, she was here and WANTING to use one, and... well...
Jan had to stifle a grin at the not-pout thing Bill was doing just then.
"I suppose we could float this up over it, and STEAL the show from each and every last one of them, instead," Bill muttered out next, trying to find a compromise for her. It would truly be a LITERAL upstaging as well, their stage floating literally right above that one. He'd been planning on putting on the show over the town square, though -- or at least the better part of the airspace nearby! Bill wanted an audience for this one! Breaking a stage in was supposed to be LOUD!!! --And FUN!
Jan grinned. "Well I did mean that I wanted to use your stage, both for fun and for that Woodstick thing. They have all those hot air balloons anyway, so what's wrong with having a stage up in the sky as well?" He leaned over to nuzzle Bill a bit (which had Bill looking considerably better-slash-happier almost immediately). "We could perform together, if you want. And this stage can move, so we could fly around to find the spot with the best audience."
This had Bill humming softly, and immediately moving on to thinking about the logistics for pulling this off properly using his stage for the show -- the final performance during Woodstick, but also the practice sessions that would need to happen before that, which could of course start happening just that afternoon that very same day… and what he would need to do (and not do) in order to 'get away with' doing it with Stanley, while also handling keeping both Shooting Star and Pine Tree around, since he had been tasked with 'babysitting duty' over them for the afternoon...
Jan looked on during all this and found it adorable how much his brother was trying to plan this out.
"Can I perform with you?" Mabel asked them both rather excitedly as she looked down at them over the edge of the stage. "I kinda want to do karaoke with Grunkle Stan and Dipper again. And maybe even Grunkle Ford too!" She didn't know how much Grunkle Ford might want to do so on a stage Bill that had built, but it couldn't hurt to just ask him and Grunkle Stan, right?
Bill looked up and blinked, then looked between his sister and then Mabel. "I... wouldn't be against performing together with you," he said to Shooting Star. Performing together with his sister was obviously a no-brainer; of course he would do that. But performing songs with Shooting Star for an audience? He remembered what had happened during that 'sock opera' of hers! ...Then again…
Bill thought for a few long moments about humoring Shooting Star's idea (first and foremost whether he even wanted to try and do it with her, while also weighing and comparing a few things that had happened before that point, and what he expected his own Zodiac's reactions to be to the thought and actuality of this, given what had happened previously with Summerween and the currently-on-hold science lessons thus far and DDNMD session and all the rest of it, really), then Bill nodded once.
"Well! Performing with Stitched Heart was fun," Bill noted. "And with Shooting Star, it may even be fun too." (Shooting Star wasn't really meant for that sort of thing as part of his Zodiac, though, Bill thought. Music stuff was more his and Stitched Heart's thing… and also potentially that Stanford's thing, too -- but Sixer was being inconsistent and continually annoying, so Bill doubted he could get that Stanford in on this whole stealing-the-show stage-performance thing -- he wasn't holding his stupid human-ish body's breath on that one anytime soon. Compared with Shooting Star in that way...)
Jan clapped his hands in delight. "We'd have to choose a song line up! And costumes! And dance choreography!" His eyes seemed to sparkle as he got into the idea. "You can tell me what you want to wear, I can create clothing--" Jan bounced in place as he grinned down at Mabel.
Mabel gasped in delight. "Can you create stuff based on sketches?" she asked. Jan nodded. "I used to draw pretty clothing all the time as a human, kinda wanted to go into fashion for a bit during college, but I chickened out…" Jan admitted. "I didn't think I was good enough…"
"Whaa? You shouldn't give up on your dreams!" Mabel frowned. That was sad. (Dipper frowned slightly at this. ...Actually, hadn't Miz said they'd also given up on being a teacher, too? How many dreams had they supposedly given up over time? Were they just lying again, or… how many times had this other Bill changed his mind?)
Jan, for his part, just shrugged. "Well, even if I couldn't do it as a human, I have all the time in the world now to pursue my interests. As a human, everyone always asked me 'But how would you make money off that?' to all my hobbies. I've had my parents tell me that I wouldn't be able to make money off art… and… my mom supported me anyway but I guess… that might have stuck with me... the fact that they didn't think I could do it… dad always laughed at me..."
"Parents are stupid," was Bill's contribution to this.
Dipper frowned. Both at Bill's dislike for parents, and for how Miz/Jan's parents had dismissed their passion. "That's… not right," he couldn't help but admit, tugging down a bit on his cap, as he sat down on the side of the big metal stage.
"They weren't being mean. They were worried for my future," Jan told them with a shrug (as Bill gestured at two of the circling drones to have them descend and extend their telescoping arms as quick makeshift 'seats' to lift both himself and his sister up to the stage, for an easier chat). "They always asked me to think about a career choice. And… it was my own fault for not knowing how to turn my interests into profit. My friends suggested selling my origami work, and that sort of worked, but it wasn't a stable source of income." Jan paused as he got his footing under him on the stage, and waved the drone off. "Wait, am I bringing down the mood again? Sorry, I'll stop." He didn't want to upset them all again, not so soon, not when they were going to do something fun today.
Mabel frowned a little and reached forward to gently take and pat the back of Jan's hand. "Yeah, a little, but we can talk about something nicer now. Like what songs we should perform!"
Jan nodded quickly, wanting to get away from the not-happy topic. "Well should I let you choose? Or should I just go with whatever I like?" Jan wondered. "I could pull up a list of all the songs I know, you can see if you know any? Or you tell me what songs you know and I can learn them?"
Bill relaxed back in his crazy chair made of security droid tentacle-arms, floating in place only a few feet over the stage, sipping his tea and watching Mabel and his sister look over a songlist floating above Jan's hands -- when he wasn't sending looks over Dipper's way -- and Dipper frowned and shoved himself a little farther away from the edge but remained seated himself, also watching. Meanwhile, the two sisters of the four of them got right into discussing music and clothing, with Jan dancing on the stage to show Mabel some choreography at one point. Dipper didn't particularly like how any of this was going. Mabel was getting waaaay too excited about everything, and seemed to be losing track of exactly who they were dealing with here. It left Dipper just fretting with nerves over the whole thing. He didn't trust it, not one bit. This 'floating stage' idea and this 'musical takeover' -- really, the way Bill was handling all this in general -- reminded him way too much of the inside of the Fearamid during Weirdmageddon. ...Honestly, the whole thing with Weirdmageddon, really.
But as Dipper watched Mabel a little more, he realized that she actually wasn't getting too out of hand, here. He remembered what that sock puppet opera last summer had been like -- what Mabel was usually like during all of her major craft projects, really. She wasn't just blurting out a bunch of crazy things like she usually did, then backing down off of them; she just wasn't saying them in the first place. ...She was being careful what she said around the two demons who might actually carry it out. So… she was handling the demons just fine. ...Huh.
--But that didn't mean that he could just leave her alone with them! And he wouldn't! That was crazy-dangerous. So he sat on the stage, eyeing them all, with his journal out and at the ready, and took copious notes on their activities instead.
"--e still need to ask Stitched Heart to perform with us!" Jan nodded to himself. "He's actually not that bad. Impressive guitar work for a teenager."
Dipper let out an involuntary snort at this, and Jan raised an eyebrow when he heard it. "What? He practiced long and hard to learn how to play. And he likes it."
Dipper winced. "Sorry," he responded, not knowing what else to say. "I have trouble believing Robbie is any good." Not that Dipper had exactly heard any of Robbie's music aside from that time he'd tried to brainwash Wendy with some music that he hadn't even written himself, but he didn't exactly think that Robbie could've written anything that was actually good. Just by looking at those posters alone, he was pretty sure it was all really bad to have to hear, real cringe-worthy stuff.
"Well, this'll be a good chance for you to actually hear him play!" Jan told him brightly. "And not something overly edgy like he generally prefers to do…" Jan paused and tilted his head. "Though, I wonder if he's skilled enough to do Dragon Force covers?"
"Stitched-Heart is capable of playing absolutely anything," Bill informed them all, as he took another sip from his cup. "He's done the hardest of the classics; he can handle any of this." (And that left Dipper blinking and looking over at him as he remembered -- Wendy had sent him a few of those old posters from when Robbie'd been performing classical choral music when he was really little, right? Then again, how good could Robbie have been at age… whatever, a whole bunch of years younger than he and Mabel were right now, if he'd guessed Robbie's age right from those posters.)
Jan and Mabel continued playing around on the stage for a bit, while Bill finished up his cup of tea and then pulled up his main physical interface (the imagery being displayed and actions-read from the easy-access control panel on the left forearm of his suit) and finished checking on the final calibrations and integrated performance parameters. And once it looked like he was done...
"Well, we should go find Stitched Heart and get this started!" Jan cheered. "We've got rehearsals to prepare for!" He and Mabel had all sorts of outfits planned out already!
Mabel was thrilled for this to happen, ready to get this show on the road! But Dipper was grimacing as he texted Pacifica to warn her of the arrival in town of the possible impending floating 'fortress' they were all currently sitting on. Then he texted Wendy next, too.
---
Robbie shouldered his guitar case and opened the door to head out for the day, then stopped short, hand on the doorknob, as he realized somebody was standing out on the porch outside the screen door, standing out on his back porch.
Then he recognized who it was -- that damn demon, standing there with the widest grin on his face, along with somebody else there behind him -- and Robbie immediately slammed the door closed before he even got as far as looking at whoever else was out there with him. --Nope. Not today. Maybe he could pretend he hadn't seen him...
...yeah, right. Like ignoring the demon had worked out well for him the last time. His parents had let him in, and then the demon had played loudly enough on the piano down in the funeral service room that Robbie practically hadn't been able to hear himself think up in his own room above there, let alone play anything, and the demon had kept going on and on until Robbie had finally given up and--
Robbie winced as he heard the demon's voice call out through the closed door, "Stitched-Heart! It's stage-breaking-in time! We need to borrow some of your equipment to do it right!" (Ugh, he didn't really want to hand over any of his stuff to the demon -- it was expensive! The stupid demon might break it! ...Maybe he could sneak out the front door instead.)
Another voice, some guy he'd never heard before, came through the door next. "May we please borrow some equipment? We wanna perform during Woodstick."
...Great. The demon was roping more people into his crazy-demon things, even out-of-towners now. Which meant the front door was probably covered too, or would be in a second if he tried.
Robbie groaned under his breath and rubbed a hand across his face as he tried to think this through. Because, what was the worst thing that could happen, if he actually managed to pull off running away from the demon and whoever else was out there and in on this thing with him? ...If he didn't let them in, and managed to skip out the front door, could he count on his parents not loaning out his equipment to the demon and his friends? He wasn't so sure about that…
"Get your own stuff! I'm not letting you borrow mine," Robbie called out through the closed door at them, turning and slumping his back up against it, hoping that the crazy demon didn't try calling his bluff.
Then Robbie heard the screen door go and... then he heard Mabel's voice come through. "Ummm… Robbie? We just want to sing and play some music together. And Bill said you had the equipment that we need to do it. I don't think he'll do anything weird to it. You can come along if you want, to make sure he doesn't do anything wrong with it?"
Robbie groaned and dropped his head back to thunk against the door behind him softly. Really? The demon had roped the girl twin into this, too?
"Look, I told him, I'm not joining whatever band he wants to do!" Robbie complained. "I've already got a band!" He was pretty sure that this was going to turn out to be some kind of trap -- they'd get him to loan them the stuff and then come along with them, and once he was there...
"You can be in more than one band at a time," Robbie heard from the demon, closer-in this time. Ugh, the demon had to be leaning up against the side back door now.
"I was going out to practice," Robbie complained. Alone.
"You can practice with us! You're not playing with them right now today," he heard the demon say next.
"You don't know that," Robbie grumbled out, but it was true; he'd been planning on going out and--
There was a sigh and then that voice Robbie didn't recognize spoke up again, saying, "It's fine. I guess Robbie's too shy to come and perform at Woodstick with us. I'm sure we can get the instruments and speakers somewhere else."
...What? Robbie twitched, then shook his head. "Yeah, you better go get them somewhere else. I'm already gonna be playing at Woodstick this year." Not that Robbie knew that for sure, yet, because they hadn't sent out the emails yet on who had been selected to perform--
"Don't want to get it somewhere else," he heard the demon say next. "You can play with both bands this year, you know."
"No, I can't!" Because-- "You can only sign up for one band at a time, or you get your app for the festival tossed out." It was how they made sure they got enough variety in the acts to make it an actual independent music festival, not just a bunch of look-alike sound-alike posers. Then something occurred to him like a bolt out of the blue, and Robbie felt himself go pale. "Hey. --Hey!" He straightened away from the door, starting to get angry, because--
Robbie turned towards the back door and yanked it open, glaring. "--You better not have signed me up for your band this year, or we'll both not end up getting in!" He glared at the demon -- he didn't want to not make it this time because of a stupid disqualification like that!
--and Robbie stopped short as he caught sight of the demon and that unknown person… who had four arms---- and-- (the heck?!?)
"I don't think we need to register if we're planning to just crash the festival?" the four-armed… person? Demon? (Was it another demon!? --How?! Didn't the old man say he wasn't going to let Bill bring any of his freaky friends here?!) --Whoever-it-was said it, as they turned and looked directly at Bill. And once Robbie tore his gaze away from staring at all the arms and looked up at the guy's face, the teenager had to do yet another double-take. This guy… Robbie shook his head. What the heck? He… looked human… mostly. Aside from the arms… Robbie frowned. No, this was definitely some kind of demon or something, those freaky arms had swirling black markings on them that moved.
"I'm not gonna play with you," Robbie repeated again instead, backing away a little from the freaky (if admittedly kind of attractive, the jerk) four-armed man.
"It would be more fun if you did." The stranger pouted at him. "Brother said music is your thing, and I really liked when we played together last time."
Played together the last-- what?? Robbie frowned. He didn't remember ever playing together with this demon. But then the first part of that sentence really registered with him, and his eyes widened. "Wait, brother--?!" Robbie's eyes shot over to Bill and things began to come together for him. He opened his mouth in shock, a million different things going through his head as he tried to figure out what to say here, but when he finally did say something it was, "Weren't you a little girl?!"
Bill's sister (brother?!) shrugged at him and said, "I got bored. Thought I'd change it up."
...and Robbie could only lament his life and wish he didn't have to deal with this… (It was just like when the stupid triangle had suddenly decided to be a cool-looking girl and come over to the graveyard every other day, bothering him all over again! But even worse this time, since at least Bill was still freaking recognizable, and definitely a guy once you saw him doing more than just lying there breathing! And Bill's sister was way too hot as a guy-- nope! Not gonna go down that particular thought. He was totally not jealous of him at all. Freaky four-arms and everything that could probably hold at least two guitars--)
"C'mon, Robbie," was what he heard next, and that was enough to get him poking his head out the door and looking out to the side to see… both Mabel and Dipper standing there. And it sounded like the boy twin was taking no shit today. "If we've gotta go along with this, so do you. Where's the equipment," he said, as he pushed his way into the house past Robbie and the doorway.
("Hey!" Robbie complained as he got past him.)
But Dipper just kept right on going. Because there was no way Dipper was going to suffer through this alone. Misery loved company and Robbie was literally the worst company that he could think of for this. So, why not?
"Just, freaking hold on a second, all right?" Robbie grumbled, shoving past Dipper as he moved back into the back entrance way of his own house. "My equipment, my rules," he said, almost before he realized it, and Robbie was already kicking himself as he heard the far-too-close behind him "HA!" from the crazy triangle demon, who must've followed him already into the house next.
"Yay!" Jan cheered, throwing all his hands in the air (in a bit of a chorus with Mabel there, who had cheered the same thing). "You said it! So we're doing it! No take backs!"
Robbie groaned the way that Dipper kind of wanted to just then. (They looked at each other and shared a common glare.)
"...Right," said Dipper. They might as well get on down to it. "So, where is all this stuff that Bill wants to bring?" he asked him.
---
(The demons and kids had a wild and wonderful music-filled adventure that day -- well, at least some of them thought it was wonderful, anyway. Ford ended up yelling at them all later that night for it, too. But that's a story for another time.)
---
To Ford's (eventual) relief, it seemed the man-eater had gotten bored of being a male-gendered object of pure worship after less than twelve hours of going at it, with no noticeable short-term impact on the town (though Ford would have to be vigilant in looking for the usual medium- and longer-term effects that might rear its ugly head later). The man-eater had changed back into their little girl form after a whole wild day of shenanigans around town. (It was a series of events Ford was still frustrated to have missed out on, not least of which had to do with the fact that Stan had simply let the children spend their time with the demons for the entire day after ordering Bill to spend the entire rest of the day around them -- which was dangerous no matter what Stan said about Bill 'being about to babysit them both properly now' -- and Ford still couldn't believe that his brother had taken that risk!)
...Not that this other 'little girl' form of theirs was much better, since the man-eater had obviously made their 'Miz' form small and helpless-looking on purpose in order to lower the defenses of any person who saw it, as some form of 'easy victim here!' trap.
In fact the man-eater was clearly trying to invoke some sort of strong empathy-response in him now, looking up at him with those wide eyes, pretending to be nervous, and timid, and--
--and it wasn't going to work! He refused!
"Um… mister Ford, can I talk to you? Like, actually have a conversation where we both try to not lose our tempers with each other?" Miz asked him quietly. "Stan can be there too, to tell us to stop if he thinks things are going for a bad turn."
Ford twitched, and he looked up from his book at the kitchen table to glare over at her. "I don't want to talk to you," he ground out at her firmly. Frankly, he didn't want this man-eater talking to anyone in his family at all. He felt wary enough at the idea of her continuing to have discussions with Bill Cipher that ended in the demon hugging her. That could not possibly be good for--
--But he especially did not want her talking to him. Certainly not after the last several times that this demon who was trying to be a 'Bill Cipher' had done so, and-- --He wasn't stupid. He wasn't about to give the demon an open invitation to openly be horribly rude to him, or to try and 'break' his mind with Bill as a 'helpful' assist all over again.
Stan, on the other hand, gave Miz a level stare over his crossword puzzle book from where he was sitting at the same table. "What did you want to talk to him about?" Stan asked her, running interference for Ford.
Miz sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "I've been doing a lot of thinking," to which Bill raised his head and looked approving (thinking was always good), "--And I think that… my definitions and Ford's definitions for things aren't the same for pretty much everything, and I think that might be what's causing most of the problems we have with each other. So, I thought that maybe we should talk and clarify things?"
Stan raised his eyebrows at this. He wasn't so sure about that one; hell, he'd had a talk with her and the kid over why Ford kept getting so touchy with her days ago, and that one hadn't even made the list…
...then again, a lot of what Stan did with the kid was vocabulary concepts and defining terms, and he'd already figured out pretty quick that the kid meant different things than he necessarily sounded most times, and that Ford had never even seemed to realize this. So…
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